


Interlude

by Anonymous



Category: The Flash (TV 2014)
Genre: Drunk Sex, Dubious Consent, M/M, One Night Stands
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-06-04
Updated: 2015-06-04
Packaged: 2018-03-30 23:33:23
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,361
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3956074
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The future is still waiting and there are so many different paths that can be taken to get there. It's a small reward to be able to take one that gives him Barry Allen for a night.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Interlude

The first time Barry Allen meets the man he knows as Harrison Wells is something of a conundrum. It is entirely possible to claim it happens when Barry is twenty-four and lying in a hospital bed. Or months later than that when he asks how long he's been in a coma. Or centuries into Barry's future and years into Harrison's past, or not at all because Harrison Wells as Barry knows him does not exist.

(The first time Barry Allen meets Eobard Thawne has the exact same uncertainties.)

Barry, with his rather more linear view of things, might be able to choose between moments but Harrison can't and doesn't try. He rather likes the ambiguity.

There is only one truly important first for them anyway – in less than a week the Flash will have his genesis.

The bar – chosen by placing scrawled paper slips in a bucket and picking at random until everyone was tired of arguments for and against and simply threw up their hands and agreed to let him make the next pick the last – is filled with Harrison's people. All around him the men and women responsible for helping him finally achieve his life's work are celebrating, trying to exorcize some of the near-delirious excitement and nerves before the big day, lest it makes them careless when attention is vital. (That is the excuse they've decided upon, at least.) They are understandably thrilled with their achievement and convinced that the S.T.A.R. Labs particle accelerator will change the face of science.

Which is absolutely true, of course. Just not quite in the manner they expect.

Grinning widely Cisco forgets for a moment his still lingering awe of his boss and passes him a glass. ( _I was nothing when he gave me a job, a chance to change my life_ , he'll say one day, as if that wasn't precisely why Harrison chose him – there is no better loyalty than that 'freely' given by someone who believes in debts and thinks they are not being asked for one.) 

Harrison smiles at him, at Ronnie and Caitlin staring and smiling goofily at each other in a corner, at the whole damn bar because soon he will have everything he needs. The future is almost within reach, so close he can nearly taste it.

(Sharp, the ozone scent of a speedster hitting their stride.) 

This is the only celebration the particle accelerator will have. He will lose nearly everyone who has been sincerely congratulating him this night, will watch them grab onto the shreds of their reputations and careers in the wake of what they currently think will be their greatest success and flee from the taint of connection to him and his dream.

He licks bourbon from his lips and doesn't regret the future in the slightest. For him the gain is so much more than the loss and that is the only thing that matters.

Caitlin wanders over, dragging a happy to be led Ronnie with her, telling him earnestly that she – they – have to be going; of course they'll stay longer if he wants them to –

"It's fine," he says, holding his glass up to them, smiling.

In less than a week, the joy that has been so bright in Caitlin ever since Ronnie asked her to marry him will be gone. Ronnie himself will be… absent.

Well. Ignorance is bliss, as they say.

Harrison likes the pair of them – he likes a great many of the people who work for and with him, considers some of them good friends – but he watches them walk out of the door with entwined hands and light steps, breathtakingly unaware of all the future holds, and his smile doesn't falter for a second. Perhaps that says something about him.

He is still smiling benevolently when he catches sight of Barry Allen, winding his way through the crowd and looking perhaps slightly confused by how busy it is, or what he is doing there. Perhaps he is lost. Almost certainly if he is lost he is late for something and the thought puts genuine feeling into Harrison's smile.

Barry looks... young is the word Harrison decides he wants, though it can't come even close to encapsulating everything he feels at the sight of Barry Allen in the flesh. (At last.) There is a twinge of something beneath Harrison's ribs to see him, untouched by his destiny yet so very close to it he can almost see the gold sparking across his limbs, lightning paused mid-event.

He would like to blame the alcohol for the way he leaves his seat and heads straight towards the man he should not see until the evening the particle accelerator goes online – or perhaps only after, either is possible depending on a number of factors, Barry's chronic lateness a significant one – but the truth is that where Barry Allen is concerned he has always had difficulty restraining himself.

So close to his dream being fulfilled, so close to the man that is his dream fulfilled, Harrison doesn't particularly care to.

Barry's eyes widen at the sight of him, something Harrison laughs to recognize as hero worship appearing in them. His greeting is breathless and Harrison –

Harrison smiles broadly, well aware of the curious glances some of the scientists who happen to be looking at them are sending him, having probably never seen him look quite so honestly delighted before.

"Doctor Wells," Barry says, stumbling over his words, and Harrison conceals his twisted smile at the address in the millisecond he blinks. "I – uh – oh wow, I didn't expect – I'm a big fan. Of your work," he adds hastily, as if he really thinks he can separate the science and the man the way most other people can when speaking to Harrison. Barry is not really capable of that kind of demarcation. Yet. "The particle accelerator is – it's going to be _amazing_ –"

He has no idea.

Harrison admires the ridiculous flush creeping up Barry's cheeks and stretches out his hand to shake Barry's, subconsciously noting the absence of something in the touch – the hum of Barry's blood rushing through his veins, the heat and power of the Speed Force barely contained. "It is," he agrees, looking at the young man who will be the pinnacle of it all.

He can hardly wait to see him as he should be: a streak of scarlet and gold, capable of leaving the barriers of sound, light and time itself shattered in his wake.

Barry laughs a little, something that might even be called a giggle, staring at him with those awestruck eyes and clearly wondering if he dares to make a comment about vanity.

"I'm sorry," Harrison says contritely, forcing himself to let go of Barry's hand, acting as if just realizing he still holds it, "I didn't catch your name...?"

"Oh! I'm Barry. Barry Allen."

"Barry Allen," Harrison repeats, careful to keep the exultation the name deserves out of his voice, noting the slight uptick in the pulse in Barry's neck, the tiny movements of his pupils. He wonders if his own are as obvious in their attempt to take him in. "And what brings you here, Mr. Allen?"

"Barry, please. I, uh, I was supposed to meet someone –" he fumbles to pull his phone from his pocket, staring at it a moment before laughing self-consciously. "Oh, that explains it," he says. "Sorry, I just checked – five minutes after I left my apartment I got a 'sorry, Barry, misfire'." He pauses. "Also, turns out I'm not even in the right place anyway."

Harrison knows he's lying about the last to make a better story but he lets the struggle to control his smile show on his face and Barry grins sheepishly, looking pleased to have entertained someone with his misfortune.

"Well," Harrison says, "given that you're here anyway… would you like a drink?"

He should probably ask if Barry is old enough, acknowledge just how young he appears to be, but he already knows exactly how old Barry is (to the very minute) and decides he can't be bothered. Undoubtedly Barry gets that question often, he'll appreciate the exception.

Barry stares at him, that charming little flush returning a shade darker than before. "Sure," he says after a moment, sounding a little stunned by the turn his night has taken, stepping into Harrison's wake and following as meekly as a lamb. "I don't... Um. Don't drink much?"

"Is that a question?" Harrison asks and laughs at Barry's embarrassed expression. He knows what Barry is really trying to say, what he means - that he doesn't want to do anything humiliating under the influence, not in front of someone he admires (and doesn't that give him a little thrill, to know just how much Barry looks up to him). "One drink then. It won't do any harm."

He doesn't smile when one drink turns into two but that is because Barry is nervously tripping over an explanation of new breakthroughs in forensic science that Harrison forgot years ago and he doesn't want to make him feel defensive or awkward. He smiles at the third drink but it is only at himself and his ridiculous disinclination to be parted from even a powerless Barry Allen just yet. He buys a fourth because Barry likes to have something in his hands to occupy himself with while he asks earnest questions that make Harrison laugh and a fifth just because he looks a little thirsty and Harrison forgets that he can't burn through alcohol the way he will.

(That shuddering little fault beneath his ribs again, Barry's lopsided smile lighting something incandescent in his blood. The future waits for him but now he will always have had this moment to take there, this moment and that smile, so freely and carelessly given.)

Harrison waves someone away when they ask if he is leaving with them – he'd known the only way he would stay any length of time for these celebrations was if he didn't have the excuse of having his own vehicle to leave in at any time, so he'd allowed himself to be cajoled into someone's carpool. Now, of course, circumstances have changed – reluctant as he was to come he is even more reluctant to leave.

Barry's eyes become soft and heavy-lidded and when Harrison offers to take him home he appears startled to look around and realize he no longer needs to raise his voice to be heard, that the bar is considerably emptier than before.

"Umm," he says, drawing the sound out into a little hum of confusion. "I don't – are you good to drive? 'Cause I don't think you are?"

"I don't drive much," Harrison says, rather than point out that actually most of the drinks have been Barry's. "I thought I'd walk you to your door. You live close by, don't you?"

He is prepared to remind Barry that he has told him over the course of the evening that he doesn't own a car and that he hadn't minded being called out here accidentally because it isn't that far from his apartment anyway, but Barry doesn't ask.

"Okay," he says easily, as simple as that, as if he sees nothing odd in a famous physicist offering to walk him home. He sees nothing odd in any of this at all.

(There it is, the core of Barry Allen – he believes in people, in altruism, in the kindness of human hearts. He will not be broken of the habit, despite best efforts.)

The wind outside is cutting, makes Barry shiver and step closer to Harrison's side. His eyes clear a little but he walks very carefully, very deliberately straight and doesn't shake off the supportive hand placed on his back.

He asks Harrison about the kind of things he expects to learn from the particle accelerator, forgetting he has already asked the same question before, and then asks what he most hopes will come of it. 

"The future," Harrison murmurs, doesn't bother to hide the fervency of his belief. He politely ignores Barry's enthralled look out of the corner of his eye instead of basking in it the way he wishes he could.

When they finally reach Barry's shoebox of an apartment, Barry shivering with cold and swaying a little, he tells himself he is prepared to step back and let Barry go until time and destiny return him but Barry catches his wrist with clumsy fingers and asks earnestly if he'd like to come in, it's cold, he could warm up a little –

He probably doesn't even realize what he sounds like, the way his offer could be misconstrued. 

Harrison smiles – he'd like to think 'politely' but knows it's not even close and if Barry weren't so inebriated he'd probably falter – and tugs his hand free. He thinks of the future, of the destiny that awaits this boy.

The lightning is certain. That they will fight is certain. Perhaps it is just as inevitable then that he curls his fingers around Barry's the second after his expression falls, the second before he can actually decide he's been rejected. The storm will break regardless; he might as well have this.

"Coffee, perhaps?" Harrison mocks gently as he lets himself be guided into Barry's home and Barry nods as if the suggestion is utterly serious, actually moves as if to go and make some. Harrison cannot help but laugh – Barry Allen, ladies and gentlemen.

He has said the name so many times, so many different ways, but it occurs to him as he pulls the boy off balance and into his arms, all flailing limbs and a startled squeak as their lips meet in an uncoordinated press of mouths, that he has always said it as if it was all he needed to define him. There are so very many emotions involved and yet somehow with two words he can express any and all at will.

Some things are a mystery even to science.

Barry mumbles something questioning against his mouth, hands fluttering across his shoulders as if he's not quite sure what to do with them, if he really can use them to push him away. Harrison crowds him until his back is against a wall and those hands freeze on his chest, Barry unable to think of anything to do but yield.

He has no idea, this Barry Allen, of the history and future between them, not a single clue. Of all the things they have been and will be to each other, all the things they can't be.

"D-Doctor Wells?" Barry gasps and Harrison can't even smirk at the idea that he can't address him without a title, even while pressed against a wall with his shirt rucked up and his pants half undone, his cock beginning to harden in Harrison's hand. He is vaguely aware that he might be staring at Barry as if he has found God.

(In a manner of speaking, perhaps he has. Did he not remake himself in the Flash's image, become the shadow cast by his light?)

"You can't even imagine how much I want to fuck you," Harrison murmurs and thinks it might be the first genuine thing he's said in nearly fourteen years. He is very good with his words, at telling the exact truth in such a way that it defends a lie; it entertains him, and he takes his amusements where he can find them these days. Actual honesty is an alien taste on his tongue but he recognizes it all the same.

(It has always been about Barry. Everything. He deserves to know that.

He will. One day.)

Barry blinks at him, flushed and wild-eyed, as if he can't quite grasp what Harrison has just said. "Is this really happening?" 

Harrison has to stifle laughter at the idea they might be thinking the same thing for the same reasons – how much he would have given once, _did_ give, to have this, to have his hero before him, wanting him – and then abruptly shuts the thought out. Harrison Wells is not Eobard Thawne. Even in his own mind he can't afford to let the identities touch. Not yet.

"Yes," he says instead, and watches Barry's throat work for a moment. He is tempted to lean forward and feel the movement against his tongue and then he remembers that he can, that Barry will let him. He closes his eyes at the taste of Barry's skin, holding hard against the urge to bite.

Barry takes a shaky breath and makes an uncertain noise that might be a whimper. "Okay," he says, and Harrison isn't sure who he's trying to convince. "Okay, okay." 

Regardless of who he's encouraging, Harrison or himself, he manages to sound ridiculously determined and so, so innocent. Harrison catches skin between his teeth before he can stop himself, digs his fingers into Barry's hips hard enough to be certain of bruises and moans at the thought of Barry still wearing the marks of this encounter when the lightning strikes. (That too might be considered a marking at his hands.)

Barry doesn't struggle or protest, although he makes a soft uncomfortable noise they both pretend not to have heard. He keeps his back against the wall and shuffles sideways, hand groping along until it finds the door it seeks. He stumbles back through it and pulls Harrison after him, the pair of them unbalanced and ungainly, tripping over each other until managing to fall onto Barry's bed.

Harrison worms a hand beneath Barry's clothes and presses down over his heart (over an emblem that doesn't exist yet outside of his memory) feeling the rapid (slow) thud against his fingers.

Barry seems to take it as an indication to do something and starts fumbling helplessly at his shirt buttons, fingers slipping drunkenly over them, to his confused and faintly comical frustration. Harrison buries his laughter into Barry's shoulder and saves the price of a new shirt by removing it himself, grinning smugly at Barry's quizzical scowl at the competence of his fingers.

"Not fair," Barry mumbles, distracted from his own nervousness and Harrison leans down to kiss him. There is no bite to the kiss, no ozone sting, but the alcohol lingering on Barry's mouth that should taste sour is sweetened instead by the triumph that fills him as his great enemy clumsily tries to help as he strips him.

Laid bare Barry appears soft and unfinished without the efficient streamlined musculature of a runner, just as he feels cold without the Speed Force humming ever-ready in his veins. Harrison knows intellectually that the problem is with his perception, not Barry, but he cannot help but be a little frustrated by his expectations. After so many years he should probably be inured to seeking the Flash and finding only Barry Allen.

Not that Barry Allen is a disappointment – if anyone else were to imply such a thing in his hearing he would never stand for it. (Isn't there a saying, about judging a man's worth by his enemies? Let no one ever try and claim the Flash at any point in his timeline isn't worth the extremes Eobard will go to.)

Nobody else struck by that lightning bolt would become quite what Barry was. Will be. 

He is simply different now. Human. (Pre-apotheosis.)

Harrison skims his fingers down over Barry's ribs, counting – he has broken this one, this one, this one – and then up over his collarbone – he will break that too one day, with a punch that could have shattered stone with a little more speed behind it – lingering for a second (an age) at his throat.

Barry's lips part tentatively when he presses his thumb to them, the nervousness back in his eyes and warring with the desire that keeps him lax and open to Harrison's every touch. Harrison smiles at him and he tries – very obviously – to consciously relax. He fails completely and soft and unfinished he might be, too cold and clumsy and slow, but he is still the most beautiful thing Harrison will ever touch or Eobard break.

"Are you scared?" Harrison wonders, grinning at the thought of the Flash of his memory, baring his teeth while lightning flickers in his eyes, furious at the very idea of admitting to fearing his shadow. Beneath him Barry shakes his head determinedly as if the question was really meant for him, hands clenching at his sides as if that will hide how they shake.

"I'll be good to you," Harrison promises and it's not a lie – nothing he will ever say to Barry is a lie. It's just that nothing will ever be the whole truth either.

So sweet, the way Barry blushes, crimson spreading all the way down his throat, the ridiculous look of relief and unbearable trust, the way he simply lets Harrison maneuver his body however he wants.

He still bites his lip and looks away when Harrison starts to press slick fingers into him – doesn't even ask how he knew where to find the lubricant, though Harrison imagines he wouldn't in any case, drunk enough not to question the convenience – and Harrison has to dig the fingers of his free hand into the sheets to stop from curling them into a fist, stop himself from demanding Barry focus on him. 

He breathes out slowly against Barry's nape and watches the play of muscles in his back, the instinctive tensing and forced relax. He could take Barry like this, on his hands and knees, shove his face down into the pillow to smother his cries, fuck him hard and fast, make it _hurt_. Barry would enjoy it, he'd make him enjoy it –

No. That's not him now, is it?

Another life he would fuck Barry like that. This one, he concentrates instead on breaking Barry of his embarrassment and self-consciousness, tries to make him forget about trying to smother his noises of enjoyment, forget about being insecure about his body or embarrassed by the position he's in, forget everything except Harrison's fingers moving inside him, giving him pleasure, working him open.

Thirteen, nearly fourteen _years_. Fourteen seconds can be an eternity for them. It is surely the least he's owed for the gift he will be giving Barry – and the world by consequence – soon, the strangled noise Barry makes when he crooks his fingers just right. 

He doesn't allow himself to indulge in the thought of what it might be like if their powers were within reach. He concentrates instead on the hoarse moan Barry chokes out that goes straight to his cock, jolts down his spine like the lightning that marks them both. 

He sinks his teeth into his lower lip to keep desperate words of the future stillborn on his tongue when Barry's arms begin to tremble, shaking at a perfectly normal human speed. He has to close his eyes imagining the way Barry will undoubtedly lose control at some point and vibrate subconsciously once he has his speed. He thinks he'll laugh to watch Barry's fumbling navigation of his powers in such a context. He hopes he'll be able to laugh.

He pulls away and encourages Barry to turn over beneath him, kissing the gasping mouth that meets him with greedy abandon.

So much better to see Barry's face, his eyes – to have the perfect memory of the expression Barry Allen wears as he pushes his cock into him, as easily as he slid a knife into his mother's chest over a decade ago.

He is certain Barry feels no pain – a vague discomfort at the foreign sensation at the very worst, and if the way he cries out as he fills him is any indication, not even that. He would swear upon their lightning that it feels as good to Barry as it does to him, and as much as some small part might still want to take him roughly and without care, make him beg and scream –

"Good?" Harrison gasps into Barry's ear as if he doesn't know, and the desperately panted _yes_ he gets in return is almost as delightful as knowing how the question will sour with revelation for Barry, that he'll always wonder why he was asked, if Harrison truly cared.

(He does. That what comforts now will wound later is simply a bonus.)

When Barry remembers this in the not too distant future it will hurt him all the more to realize what he believed was good was tainted from the start, and if the echoing of his own history satisfies Eobard even more than the way Barry claws shamelessly at his back when he starts to withdraw, trying to pull him back... he will always be the only one to know. His personal timeline went through several alterations only he remembers long before Barry's knew even one.

"Beautiful," Harrison murmurs and watches Barry's brow furrow in a clearly drunken attempt to work out if he means it as a response to something he's done or simply as praise. Harrison isn't entirely sure himself.

To be inside Barry is not unlike touching the Speed Force for the first time, the sudden grasping of the true extent of momentum/infinity waiting in every step, every run – a blasphemous claim for a speedster, perhaps, but Barry is quite literally the beginning and the end for Eobard Thawne.

The universes being infinite in their variation, the timelines of each manifold, there must be one in which Barry does not inspire this terrible need in him, a single universe where the passion he bears Barry – for love and hate are the same at their core, their opposite indifference Eobard has never been capable of – does not consume him, make him grasp the Speed Force and shape time like clay to run to/at/for/against the Flash. There must be one or the universes are not truly infinite, yet Eobard finds it impossible to imagine such a world, one where there is nothing between them, not when he would kill – has killed and so much more – for Barry.

Perhaps there is even a universe where he could want such a terrible thing - to be able to look at Barry and feel nothing.

Far more likely there is a universe where he has a lifetime to learn all the ways to make Barry scream or sigh, which almost saddens him.

He will never have Barry Allen beneath him again after this night. Oh, they'll be reintroduced soon enough – Harrison Wells will do whatever he finds necessary to have the Flash near him, under his aegis. But _this_ – Barry gasping lowly and shaking human-slow around him, wide eyed with confused hero worship as he presses him deeper against the mattress – this he cannot have again.

Better make the most of it.

It has been longer than he cares to admit since he touched someone, anyone this way but that it is _Barry_ moaning and begging for more, skin slick with sweat in a way he will one day be unable to achieve without first running faster than sound…

He doesn't know if he wants to destroy him or worship him, a familiar problem he'd thought settled long ago.

Barry wraps his arms around his shoulders and digs his heels into the backs of his thighs, makes a noise that is almost a sob when Harrison bites at the side of his neck with the next thrust. He tries to say something but it dissolves into a whimper of hitching breath, just as Harrison prefers.

He has a thousand things he wants to say to Barry but can't and it hardly seems fair for Barry to have what he cannot. And if Barry speaks – if he says anything – Harrison laughs at the thought of anyone else managing to take one word from him that he is not willing to give but Barry is different, he is always different.

They are surrounded by ghosts, he and Barry, shadows that haven't yet realized their lives have long since passed in the blink of an eye. There have been days when Harrison could scream with frustration, penned in on every side by hollow men and women who have no idea of their pointlessness and the only other living, breathing (real) person convinced he was just another one of them.

He would have let flood his every thought and feeling to Barry on days like those simply to know that he had actually been heard, laid their entire history out at Barry's feet for the sake of having something real again, something not wasted upon ghosts.

"Oh," Barry groans, eyes opening wide, a shudder going through him, " _Oh,_ " and Eobard wonders if he can feel the weight of his destiny encroaching, brought into focus by this moment that should never have been, if he too can see the truth, that the singular point of the present they reside in is nothing more than a lie they tell themselves to keep sane.

He splays his hand over Barry's chest again under the pretext of pushing him down and thinks of the symbol that belongs there. Soon, soon, and he lets Barry tug his face down towards his, mouth open to take the kiss offered. One kiss into two into ten, and he almost forgets to move entirely.

(If there is one thing worth slowing, worth stopping for, it is Barry Allen.)

He rubs the thumb of his free hand briefly over the jutting bone of Barry's hip, slides his fingers over heated skin to wrap around Barry's cock.

Barry chokes out something that might be a plea in other circumstances and thrusts mindlessly into his hand, whining as he struggles to find a new rhythm between the opposing push and pull of the hand stroking him and the cock inside him.

Barry is so warm and tight and he makes such lovely little noises, grunts and gasps both similar and entirely unlike those he gives when they fight. His chest heaves, his body tightening up and then yielding again. His eyes close as he surges on a breathless sob of a moan, shaking at the long smooth strokes that take him apart.

Eobard bites at his open mouth whenever something that resembles a name almost escapes, thrusts a little harder, a little deeper, reprimand for something Barry isn't even aware of and Barry takes it, everything he gives.

"Barry," Eobard says, the only thing he can. " _Barry._ "

Barry jerks in his hand, comes with a long low whimper that pulls an answering groan from him, as automatic a response as the call upon the Speed Force when he runs.

He plants his hands firmly on either side of Barry's body, reveling in the way Barry shudders, nothing but wordless little noises escaping him.

He sinks his teeth into the skin over Barry's collarbone, hard enough that the boy chokes on something half shout and half scream and that's the final push he needs to come, hips stuttering, hands clawing at the sheets as he pushes as deep and close as he can go.

It feels like an eternity might have passed before he remembers who and where he is, before Barry starts squirming uncomfortably beneath him, skin tacky with drying sweat and come, his entire body lax with the aftermath of orgasm, unable to tense even as Eobard slips from him or leans forward to trace the indentations left by his teeth with his tongue.

It might have only been a minute or two, of course. Time is an unbearably fragile construct and nobody knows that better than him.

He shushes Barry's weak attempts to speak, pulling him close as if it's the most natural thing in the world, the way he tangles their limbs together. He hums a song both old and unwritten and strokes Barry's hair as he waits for his ragged breathing to deepen and slow.

"Go to sleep," he says, and watches his enemy unblinkingly long into the empty hours of the morning, every slow steady breath exhaled against his shoulder part of the long countdown finally nearing its end.


End file.
